When YouTube changed the way it counts public views this past August, it said its main goal was helping creators get more brand deals, and get paid more for those brand deals.

The new counts, it said, would “[give] creators a clearer picture of their overall exposure and [make] it easier to confidently express their true scale and value to brand partners and sponsors!”

But the “clearer picture” that emerged was one of inaccurate inflation. Data from Agentio showed public viewcounts over-reported actual views by 40%; experiments by individual creators like John Green, who compared his backend viewcount of one video to its public-facing count, found similar inaccuracy.

Now, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has released a report, The Creator Economy’s Next Chapter, that calls for wide standardization of what counts as a “view.”

Accurate measurement is the “fault line beneath the creator economy,” the IAB said in its report. This overall conclusion came from 53 participating industry leaders who filled out the IAB’s survey, and also from senior industry leader interviews conducted by the IAB’s Creator Economy Board.

“Measurement also sits inside problems that look like something else. Two sides who disagree on creator pricing both agree they cannot judge whether creators are paid fairly because nobody agrees what creator content is worth,” the IAB wrote. “One in eight respondents traced budget fights with leadership to measurement gaps, and a similar share said organizations withhold results because the numbers behind them are not solid enough to publish.”

We see why this is a major concern: Brands pay creators based on their reach, so when platforms like YouTube roll out changes that inflate views, marketers end up overpaying.

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